The Niagara News is the community newspaper of Niagara College located in Welland and Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada. It is created and produced by the students of the Niagara College Journalism program.

Why don’t you smile more?

I was also recently told after sharing about the experience on social media that maybe I was told to smile because I need to “lighten up.” I was told by this person that he’s never seen someone so bitter about their job.

I like to share about work on Facebook, especially the silly things. Never specifics, but generalities about people making ridiculous requests or how terrible the band was that night and so on. There was even a string of times when my posts were about celebrity sightings.

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any celebrities since Comic Con rolled through Niagara Falls in June last year.

Most of my posts lately, to my chagrin, are about people telling me I need to smile.

My friend from afar, Cyndi Bantz, describes it perfectly in her reply to my most recent post.

“It’s totally a micro-aggression against women, and part of a larger, scarier issue about men thinking it’s OK to assume control over women’s bodies. Men are virtually never told to smile by strangers.”

In my experience, it absolutely has been a matter of control.

I work in the customer service industry, so I get I need to be courteous to people. I get I need to make sure they’re satisfied with their experience and to help them out when they need it.

But when some patron declares that for the duration of his stay it his mission to make me smile, that’s uncomfortable.

And when people are offended when I don’t smile for them, or saying I must not like them, trying to manipulate me into feeling bad about the fact I didn’t flash a grin their way, that’s equally uncomfortable.

I do my job and I do my job well. I’ve been told this a number of times and there are many patrons whom I would consider regulars who enjoy it when I’m the person they deal with.

The regulars seem to understand I’m a human too and not some machine they can program how to act. They understand how to interact beyond societal expectations. They also understand that, working swing shift, I might be dead tired and barely have the gumption to stand, let alone emote.

Most importantly, they understand I’m not going to have a smile plastered on my face 100 per cent of the time.

It’s unnatural. (Not to mention that it can be downright creepy.)

It seems to me some people aren’t comfortable with women unless they behave “appropriately” or smile, which are seemingly prerequisites for pleasantry.

Another of my friends told me about an incident that happened to TLC reality star Whitney Way Thore, who was trying to buy some gum. The clerk wouldn’t ring it up for her unless she smiled.

On her Facebook page, Thore made a post about the experience, which happened Jan. 16. She says that when she refused to smile for the clerk, he “lectured me about having a bad attitude.”

That sounds disturbingly familiar to me.

And echoing Bantz’s comment on my Facebook post, Thore adds in hers, “Would he have held a male customer’s items hostage until he smiled for him? I’m willing to bet everything I own that the answer is no.”

I’d be willing to make that bet, too.

I don’t hear any of my male co-workers being told they have to smile. My boyfriend, who also works in the customer service industry, doesn’t come home with stories about someone telling him to smile. I’ve never heard any males complain about having been told to smile.

To be fair, I’m sure they’re out there. But the frequency with which it happens is markedly less.

A book titled Gender and Emotion: Social Psychological Perspectives by Agneta Fischer also acknowledges this difference.

“The norms governing facial display, and particularly smiling, are different for females and males with females are [sic] expected to show more smiling than males.”

The text goes on to suggest the idea that women are expected to be more emotionally expressive than men are, which is why this probably occurs.

To me, that makes sense. If that really is the expectation of me and other women, when we don’t adhere to these it probably gets weird for them. But, unfortunately for them, that’s their issue, not mine.

What it comes down to is that I don’t feel obligated to smile for anyone and I shouldn’t have to feel obligated to smile for anyone. As I said, I’m a human, not a machine.

Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I should have to adhere to the expectations set for me.

If I want to smile and feel there is reason to, I will.

Just because there isn’t a smile on my face at a given moment doesn’t mean I’m a b*tch.